Aftermath
by Ryuujitsu
Summary: Yami is gone. Jou looks on Yuugi and reflects. Drabble-fic. Slashy, but only if you want to look at it that way.


point blank range  
yuugiou fanfiction  
ryuujitsu & co.

Disclaimer: No.

A/N: Alright, Jou isn't the perfect medium for an angst-y fic, but here it is. Yami is gone. Jou looks on Yuugi and reflects. Drabble-fic.  
I must apologize. One of my more treasured relationship has been cut off abruptly; as a result, Faust, which was based on that relationship, is going to be taking an extended break. I am so very sorry. These circumstances were beyond my control. I need to collect my thoughts towards that fic. I do want to finish it, so bear with me. The next few months will be hard.

_I've got nothing to lose (love me  
__till the end) Except your heart_

- -Weekend, X Japan

Sometimes in the days to follow Yami's disappearance, Jou would see it: the laconic, otherworldly stare in Yuugi's eyes that meant the other boy wasn't—entirely—_there_.

The first day after the first night and for almost a month following, Yuugi could only write bits of sentences on pieces of paper, because each time he tried to speak or explain, his eyes filled and his lips trembled. There were days afterwards that Yuugi would sit quietly with his hands in his lap and his head down and other days that he might smile or scream. But he would only cry when he was held, and because Jou was bad at the whole "holding" thing, it would usually be in Anzu's arms that Yuugi wept, as though it was the outpouring of human sympathy and love, and not his personal grief, that overwhelmed him.

Sometimes Jou was as dull as a block, but other times he would notice that, as Yuugi scribbled _he left, he left he left when I decided—he's gone, bring him back_, Anzu's pretty blue eyes would fill with pretty blue pain like Yuugi's eyes filled with purple tears. So that was when Jou finally understood that Anzu was in love with Yuugi. He had already known that Yuugi was not similarly in love with Anzu.

Anzu would hold Yuugi anyway. Jou stood guard nearby while the King of Games crumbled and wept and beat his fists against the ground and Anzu's shoulders, crying with his face flushed and embarrassed but glad for the release.

One day it was Yuugi who was absent from school, and Anzu, in a fit of worry and hysteria and hormones, took her turn sobbing on Jou's shoulder. Jou was stoic as always. He traded places with Honda for a bit and left the girl with the pretty blue eyes to check on Yuugi.

After a month and two weeks, Yuugi began to talk again. His voice was the same, if not a little deeper from growth and a little more hoarse from disuse. He had previously been simply existing but now he began to live a bit more, though his grandfather confided to Jou one day that Yuugi would force himself to cry every night by hugging a pillow—because somehow that made the tears come out. The mirrors in the house had been covered or removed, but Yuugi's reputation kept him from being bullied when he came to school looking like a wreck, hair askew and half-gelled, eyes red and sore from tears.

The first word he said was _Why?_ and it had taken twenty seconds for the fact to sink in, that Yuugi had opened his small tremulous mouth and uttered a word—an audible word, no matter how soft and faint and heartbroken. Anzu had stared with her pretty blue eyes and then shrieked, and her shriek was followed by a genuine smile, the first in a long time. Jou stood silently for a few seconds longer, then let out a whoop and hugged Yuugi tightly around the middle, lifting the boy a few inches off the ground. And because their friendship became so tangible in that moment and Jou's arms were warm around him, Yuugi cried.

_The dream is gone_, rasped Yuugi at length, fingers flitting nervously around his neck where the Puzzle used to hang. _I'm grabbing at air._

Jou swore at Yami only once, at three a.m. in the morning, because it was raining outside and the rain reminded him of the continuous torrent of Yuugi's tears. "Goddamn you," he said, and slammed his balled fingers into the wall. His hand had ached for the remainder of that day but in some way he felt that Yuugi was avenged, if only slightly, against Yami's growing list of sins.

Jou looked out for Yuugi like he never had before. Yami was gone; there was no more of that wild magic to keep the boy safe. It was Jou's turn now, with the magic of his big fists and busted-up knuckles.

_Weekend. . .I still love you  
Weekend. . .but I cannot carry on_

:fin:

A/N: Please do review. I will work on Faust when this relationship clears itself.


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